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Latest Comments by F.Ultra
Acre Crisis looks like a fun throwback to the original Dino Crisis
19 July 2024 at 12:47 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: StoneColdSpiderWell I hope its way better than Locked Door Crisis...... I mean Empty Hallway Crisis.......... Errrr...... Sorry....... No Dinosaurs Crisis.......

I still dont understand the died hard love for Dino Crisis........ Locked doors are more of an obstacle in that game than the Dinosaurs are....... You can go almost hours without seeing or hearing a Dinosaur as you wonder through empty hallways trying to unlock or bypass locked doors........ Or move crates in a not very good crate moving mini game puzzle.......

At least with this being a FPS it does indeed stand a chance of being much better...... Only time will tell I guess......

Also being a PS1 inspired game...... Is it still a Boomer Shooter or Gen Xer Shooter????..........

Sure you remember the correct game? Dino Crisis have dinos in almost every room of the game with a few exceptions.

Linux remains above 2% on the Steam Survey for June 2024
9 July 2024 at 2:37 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: LoudTechie
Quoting: F.Ultra
Quoting: LoudTechie
QuoteOn the one hand it surprises me that Linux isn't as popular in China as in, say, Germany, Brazil or India. But it also makes a lot of sense: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/steam-tracker/

If you look at the "Linux market share on Steam, another way to look at it" section, you can see the Linux (English only) share madly distances itself from Linux Overall share soon after the Steam Deck releases. Which is still not available in China, as far as I know.

Still handily beating macOS.


Warning here I'm probably a conspiracy theorist.
I can't help it.
If you don't want to read my conspiracy hypothesis(I don't have enough proof to rightfully call it a theory) about how Microsoft and the NSA are actively keeping China on Microsoft products don't click on the spoiler tag.
Spoiler, click me

The story behind Windows being popular in China smells like politics to me, but I can't prove anything directly.
Microsoft has widely encouraged Windows piracy explicitly in that market to get them reliant on their products, we've got Gates' word on this.
It's not in the consumer space alone either WannaCry wrecked Chinese servers left and right, because they all ran pirated xp to the point that China pressured Microsoft in updating XP out of release.
Microsoft is deeply embedded in the prism program.
China has done a lot of attempts to launch their "own" operating system(android and ubuntu forks) for "independence from western ecosystems", all these attempts failed miserably for all the expected reasons(reliant on proprietary shit that doesn't run on Linux).
Microsoft still barely makes a dime of all this pirated Windows in China.
I think the NSA pas them good money to make China reliant on their product and include espionage software on demand.

This is not a conspiracy, not only do we have actual proof, Microsoft is doing it in full public: Free Windows 10 upgrade for China pirates. While this particular news item is for Windows 10 they have done this in the past as well.

The conspiratory part is that I'm arguing that the NSA paid them for it.
The hypothetical part about it was that the NSA paid them for it.
Your argument upgrades my hypothesis to a theory, but it leaves the conspiratory part.

To be a conspiracy people have to work together in secret to harm someone, which is literally what I argued: NSA+Microsoft harm China.
To be a theory effects originating from the hypothesis have to show up: "active support for pirated software".

Ah sorry, I misread your post. Yeah I don't think NSA had anything to do with it, Microsoft had full motives to do this on their own and I highly doubt that the NSA have a backdoor in Windows. We have seen from history and from Snowden how NSA operates, they either intercept shipping and manipulates hw or they operate as the repairman (as they did for Xerox back in the cold war), involving private companies like Microsoft leaves too many loose ends and mouths that can speak.

GameCube and Wii emulator Dolphin moves to a more rapid release cycle
5 July 2024 at 2:42 pm UTC

Quoting: such
Quoting: ssj17vegetaNot gonna lie, considering Nintendo's recent behaviour, my heart skipped a beat when I read the first words of the title.
Easiest clickbait opportunity I've seen, and just about everyone reporting on this is taking it. Props to Liam for explicitly stating what's up instead of going for the clicks.

Also, not a great time for any announcements regarding... certain emulators. They're on sheet music now, so it's clear we're way past any kind of reason here. I'd lay very low.

The Dolphin Team received legal counsel back in the Steam page debacle and are quite firm in their belief that they do not violate any US laws, including the DMCA.

Linux remains above 2% on the Steam Survey for June 2024
4 July 2024 at 12:05 am UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: F.Ultra
Quoting: LoudTechie
QuoteOn the one hand it surprises me that Linux isn't as popular in China as in, say, Germany, Brazil or India. But it also makes a lot of sense: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/steam-tracker/

If you look at the "Linux market share on Steam, another way to look at it" section, you can see the Linux (English only) share madly distances itself from Linux Overall share soon after the Steam Deck releases. Which is still not available in China, as far as I know.

Still handily beating macOS.


Warning here I'm probably a conspiracy theorist.
I can't help it.
If you don't want to read my conspiracy hypothesis(I don't have enough proof to rightfully call it a theory) about how Microsoft and the NSA are actively keeping China on Microsoft products don't click on the spoiler tag.
Spoiler, click me

The story behind Windows being popular in China smells like politics to me, but I can't prove anything directly.
Microsoft has widely encouraged Windows piracy explicitly in that market to get them reliant on their products, we've got Gates' word on this.
It's not in the consumer space alone either WannaCry wrecked Chinese servers left and right, because they all ran pirated xp to the point that China pressured Microsoft in updating XP out of release.
Microsoft is deeply embedded in the prism program.
China has done a lot of attempts to launch their "own" operating system(android and ubuntu forks) for "independence from western ecosystems", all these attempts failed miserably for all the expected reasons(reliant on proprietary shit that doesn't run on Linux).
Microsoft still barely makes a dime of all this pirated Windows in China.
I think the NSA pas them good money to make China reliant on their product and include espionage software on demand.

This is not a conspiracy, not only do we have actual proof, Microsoft is doing it in full public: Free Windows 10 upgrade for China pirates. While this particular news item is for Windows 10 they have done this in the past as well.
Makes me wonder . . . so, recently you've got Adobe going to a revolting subscription model for all their stuff. MS Office seems to be trying to do a Google Docs thing where they're emphasizing their cloud-based version, which . . . is that a paid subscription too? Is this a widespread trend?
If it is, that subscription/cloud stuff's hard to pirate. Bunch of Chinese people might find themselves having to pay for, not Windows itself, but increasing amounts of the software they run on it. Chinese users don't care about open source, but they certainly seem to care about cheap. I can imagine a move towards Linux just for the free-as-in-beer software ecosystem. Be ironic 'cause in the past, it was Linux's software ecosystem that held it back.

Don't have much experience with Windows software but a quick look tells me that Office 365 which is their cloud office solution costs about $80 per year for a single user. And if I'm not remembering completely wrong they for a long time makes far much more money from the Office suite than they ever done with Windows so Windows have since some time in the mid 90:ies simply been a way to sell you Office. Hence the importance of having people and organizations being locked into the proprietary office formats.

Linux remains above 2% on the Steam Survey for June 2024
3 July 2024 at 12:05 pm UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: LoudTechie
QuoteOn the one hand it surprises me that Linux isn't as popular in China as in, say, Germany, Brazil or India. But it also makes a lot of sense: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/steam-tracker/

If you look at the "Linux market share on Steam, another way to look at it" section, you can see the Linux (English only) share madly distances itself from Linux Overall share soon after the Steam Deck releases. Which is still not available in China, as far as I know.

Still handily beating macOS.


Warning here I'm probably a conspiracy theorist.
I can't help it.
If you don't want to read my conspiracy hypothesis(I don't have enough proof to rightfully call it a theory) about how Microsoft and the NSA are actively keeping China on Microsoft products don't click on the spoiler tag.
Spoiler, click me

The story behind Windows being popular in China smells like politics to me, but I can't prove anything directly.
Microsoft has widely encouraged Windows piracy explicitly in that market to get them reliant on their products, we've got Gates' word on this.
It's not in the consumer space alone either WannaCry wrecked Chinese servers left and right, because they all ran pirated xp to the point that China pressured Microsoft in updating XP out of release.
Microsoft is deeply embedded in the prism program.
China has done a lot of attempts to launch their "own" operating system(android and ubuntu forks) for "independence from western ecosystems", all these attempts failed miserably for all the expected reasons(reliant on proprietary shit that doesn't run on Linux).
Microsoft still barely makes a dime of all this pirated Windows in China.
I think the NSA pas them good money to make China reliant on their product and include espionage software on demand.

This is not a conspiracy, not only do we have actual proof, Microsoft is doing it in full public: Free Windows 10 upgrade for China pirates. While this particular news item is for Windows 10 they have done this in the past as well.

Flaw in OpenSSH Server nicknamed regreSSHion could cause some problems
3 July 2024 at 12:01 pm UTC

Quoting: birdipNote that you should restart your openssh daemon right after updating the package. Otherwise it is possible that you are locked out from your server!
See e.g. here: https://archlinux.org/news/the-sshd-service-needs-to-be-restarted-after-upgrading-to-openssh-98p1/

Doesn't Arch do that automatically? DEB based distributions all restart the running demon when the package is installed/upgraded.

Embracer Group put out their plans for AI in game development
24 June 2024 at 11:59 am UTC

Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: F.Ultra
Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: F.Ultra
Quoting: Caldathras
Quoting: dvd
Quoting: DrMcCoyThe problem with Embracer is that they're not in the business of making games, making art. They're in the business of making money. They don't care how. They don't care the games apart from them being their current vehicle of making money.

That's every game company that is (or is owned by) a company on the stock market. They are happy about an inferior product as long as it improves the bottom line.
This describes most publicly traded corporations. Their lifeblood is money. They don't care how they acquire it nor do they care about the non-financial costs incurred while doing so.

And also most private companies, there is nothing in making it public that makes a company more or less greedy.
Well, not more greedy exactly . . . but more reliably greedy, and often more shortsightedly greedy. Activist shareholders tend to want returns NOW, this quarter. There's less room for personal or institutional style or for long range plans. Valve probably couldn't operate the way it does if it went public.
But it's certainly true that many private firms are just as bad. Some of the most destructive, short-term-oriented companies are the so-called "private equity" firms.

Share holders only have a say if they can muster up a majority of the votes. So the risk is actually much higher that you get one greedy new person at a private company than you can gather enough greedy share holders to make a difference in how the company is run.

The man issue is that many companies goes public to use the shares for things (like Embracer that uses their shares to buy game studios) which means that they have an incentive to keep the share price high. But if you don't do that and instead use it for what it was intended for (aka to share the risk) then there are no such incentive.

Aka in the end it's the people that is greedy so we all loose by default :)
Well, in theory perhaps, but I've definitely noticed a shift in corporate behaviour that has fairly closely tracked the "shareholder value" revolution, and which involves a whole lot of share buybacks replacing a whole lot of R&D and other longer term strategies.

Which happens because people at the C level in the company are having personal incentives to do so since the company have used their shares as bonuses to management. All of this is possible with private companies as well, however since there are no market to determine the share price there are no reason to do various stuff to inflate the share price so yes there are ofc far more opportunities for a public company to do things like this.

On the other hand a private company have far more power over decisions (since we moved from a form of democracy to pure dictatorship) which in turn increases the risks there if/when greedy people are put into a position of power.

Which is why I ended it with the problem actually being people and not necessary the company structure although some structures might concentrate the greed of individuals.

Talking about Embracer in particular I think this is less greed and more pure survival. They did miss a massive investment that where supposed to finance the next cycle of development and to add on top of that the Russian invasion of Ukraine bit Embracer in the ass with Saber:s Russian legacy forcing them to divest a profitable part of the company.

Embracer Group put out their plans for AI in game development
24 June 2024 at 2:38 am UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: F.Ultra
Quoting: Caldathras
Quoting: dvd
Quoting: DrMcCoyThe problem with Embracer is that they're not in the business of making games, making art. They're in the business of making money. They don't care how. They don't care the games apart from them being their current vehicle of making money.

That's every game company that is (or is owned by) a company on the stock market. They are happy about an inferior product as long as it improves the bottom line.
This describes most publicly traded corporations. Their lifeblood is money. They don't care how they acquire it nor do they care about the non-financial costs incurred while doing so.

And also most private companies, there is nothing in making it public that makes a company more or less greedy.
Well, not more greedy exactly . . . but more reliably greedy, and often more shortsightedly greedy. Activist shareholders tend to want returns NOW, this quarter. There's less room for personal or institutional style or for long range plans. Valve probably couldn't operate the way it does if it went public.
But it's certainly true that many private firms are just as bad. Some of the most destructive, short-term-oriented companies are the so-called "private equity" firms.

Share holders only have a say if they can muster up a majority of the votes. So the risk is actually much higher that you get one greedy new person at a private company than you can gather enough greedy share holders to make a difference in how the company is run.

The man issue is that many companies goes public to use the shares for things (like Embracer that uses their shares to buy game studios) which means that they have an incentive to keep the share price high. But if you don't do that and instead use it for what it was intended for (aka to share the risk) then there are no such incentive.

Aka in the end it's the people that is greedy so we all loose by default :)

Embracer Group put out their plans for AI in game development
23 June 2024 at 2:28 am UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: Caldathras
Quoting: dvd
Quoting: DrMcCoyThe problem with Embracer is that they're not in the business of making games, making art. They're in the business of making money. They don't care how. They don't care the games apart from them being their current vehicle of making money.

That's every game company that is (or is owned by) a company on the stock market. They are happy about an inferior product as long as it improves the bottom line.
This describes most publicly traded corporations. Their lifeblood is money. They don't care how they acquire it nor do they care about the non-financial costs incurred while doing so.

And also most private companies, there is nothing in making it public that makes a company more or less greedy.

Cosmic horror post-apocalyptic RPG Death Trash has a teaser for a new update
21 June 2024 at 10:55 pm UTC Likes: 3

Quoting: JarmerWhoa, this is a blast from the past! I think I've had this on my wishlist for ... actually I can't even remember, 4 years? More? I used to have this high on my anticipation radar, since the demo was great and the entire setting was just fantastic, but I guess it somehow got stuck in dev hell if it's still EA after all this time.

I will still keep it on my wishlist, and I hope they can get closer to a release.

It's not been stuck in dev hell, it's simply that they are a small team and they don't want to be too big so they have deliberately kept it small. Updates have been constantly coming and the plans for the entire game is already defined.

QuoteRoadmap

Welcome.

This is the roadmap for the final phase of the Death Trash Early Access.

We have avoided communicating concrete dates in the past. Working as a small team on a complicated game has been notoriously difficult, especially in regards to timely estimations. The Early Access took longer than we initially anticipated. For that we are sorry.

But during the Early Access we have improved the game and, equally important, our tools, workflows and knowledge. We are more confident now about handling the rest of the game and what time we'll need for that.

Note: These dates might still change. If one of the milestones takes longer than anticipated, all the later dates will be influenced by that, too, of course. And at the end of the day we won't call it final (1.0) if we are not happy with the state of the game and will instead put more work in. But the important thing here is, I hope, to see and to know that the end is actually in sight.

Milestones

Steam Input implementation
Current target: soon on the beta branch

The Perished City
Current target: mid-2024 on the beta branch
New locations and quests.

Improving item economy
Current target: fall 2024
This is about the range of items available in the game, inventory size, item balancing etc.

Northern Wasteland
Current target: end of 2024
New locations and quests.

Improving existing locations and gameplay
Current target: spring to mid 2025
This is in general about adding more depth to the game, both to the narrative parts as well as to the gameplay.

The Machine and the Watcher
Current target: mid- to late 2025
Final locations and quests.

Full release
Current target: mid- to late 2025

Post release
We will continue to support the game, of course. And as this game is very dear to us, this will probably happen for a long time. We haven't decided yet if the next project after this will be more directly connected to Death Trash or be a different take.

Console versions
Current target: end of 2025
We have no final decision on whether we follow through with publishing these ourselves or partnering up for that. Xbox, Playstation and Nintendo Switch versions are playable already but need more work.

Localization
Current target: unknown
We still don't know how much budget we'll have for additional languages. Production-wise it might make sense to have the localization added later than the 1.0 release so they can be done from a finished game instead of a still changing one. (If we had more experience we might try to have it all ready at once for the 1.0 release, but since our experience and resources are limited, we might rather approach this step by step.)

Level Editor
Current target: unknown
Mainly intended for users to create their own standalone adventures with the Death Trash gameplay and art assets. We might extend the functionality later on.

Extended mind item gameplay
Current target: might not happen
We have more gameplay ideas for Death Trash. But, realistically, we can't tackle all of them and have to shelve some of them for later. Enhancing the gameplay around the mind items might be one of these cases. We will revisit these ideas in the future.

Thank you

Thank you so much for your feedback and support so far. Death Trash has already become a much better game during Early Access and we couldn't have done that without you.

- Stephan